This content was published: September 10, 2007. Phone numbers, email addresses, and other information may have changed.
Caring about animals
Story by Tyler Lechtenberg, photography by Jerry Hart
Katie Matson – Jessica Fenstermacher (left) and Jamie Huffman (right)
Step away from the microscopes, the lab tables and the rest of a fully equipped laboratory in Building 7 at the Rock Creek Campus and you start to hear things.
First, the crunch of your feet hitting a gravel path. Then, a baa. Later, a moo.
This is the Veterinary Technology program: from microscopes to a mare in a minute’s walk, combining academic exploration with dirt-under-the-fingernails experience on the campus farm to produce some of the best-trained certified vet technicians in the state.
“We have a combination of technical and in-class laboratory work along with practical experience,” said Dolores Galindo, the program’s certified veterinary technician. “We have a good cooperative education program where students actually go out and start practicing the skills they’ve learned in class.”
In fact, PCC’s program is the only American Veterinary Medicine Association certified program in Oregon and one of only a handful in the West.
“We have very stringent rules and protocols that we have to meet for the AVMA standards,” Program Director Dr. Brad Krohn said. “It basically keeps us to the very highest standard there is. That’s why a lot of people want to come here.”
The Vet Tech program accepts about 30 students per year from a pool of 60 to 80 applicants. Classes are expensive to operate because of the hands-on work with the animals and the demands of technologic advancements. With additional financial resources, more students could be accepted.
And there is an increasing demand for veterinary technicians. Employment of veterinary technologists and technicians is expected to grow much faster than average through the year 2014, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The farm has a horse, llama and multiple sheep and cattle. The program also works closely with local humane societies and animal shelters as dogs and cats are brought to the farm. The animals, cared for by students and faculty for about nine months, are spayed or neutered and adopted out.
When they’re not hitting the books or on the farm, students are working with local professionals in a clinical internship. Students can work in a general veterinary practice, at Oregon Health & Science University’s primate colony, at a zoo or in a facility with laboratory animals.
Salem native Jessica Fenstermacher is a student in the program. She hopes to someday open an equine rehabilitation facility.
“It’s very tough and there’s a lot of strenuous work,” said Fenstermacher, 21. “There’s so much science but there’s also a lot of teamwork involved. It’s passion and caring for animals and giving care and giving back.”